If you’re struggling to get or maintain an erection when you’re masturbating or when you’re having sex, it may mean that you have erectile dysfunction (ED).
Your ED could be caused by many things. These could be something physical, psychological, or even lifestyle-related. Here, we’ll be focusing on how to treat your ED if it’s psychological.
Psychological erectile dysfunction is a big umbrella term that covers all the different ways your mind can shut down your erections. There are many effective treatment options, no matter what is causing you to experience psychological erection issues.
We’ve worked with our in-house expert, psychosexual and relationship therapist Amanda Barge, to get a run down of all the different ways you can treat your ED if your erection issues are psychological.
“When it comes to erectile dysfunction, psychological treatment can be extremely effective.
Spending time (mindfully) working out what is actually going on, and practicing getting in tune with your body can be a bit like training for a long run – you need to put the practice in to get results.”
Amanda Barge, psychosexual and relationship therapist
In no particular order, our handy guide will cover:
- Anxiety
- Sexual performance anxiety
- Stress
- Depression
- An unhealthy relationship with porn
- An unhealthy relationship with masturbation
- Relationship problems
- Body issues and insecurities
- Insecurities about sex skills, limited sexual experience, or a lack of sex education
- Loss of sex drive (libido)
- Major life events
- Tiredness or fatigue
For each cause of psychological ED, we’ll be explaining how to impacts your erections and – the best bit – how to go about solving the problem.
Dealing with ED or erection issues, including with Mojo, may not help with the root cause (e.g. anxiety, depression) - it is important to seek professional care from a physician to address these root causes in parallel.
Anxiety
How does anxiety impact your erections?
Everyone feels anxious occasionally, but if you’re feeling consistently anxious on a day-to-day basis, this can begin to slip into your sex life.
Increased adrenaline can send you into ‘fight or flight’ mode, which overrides your impulses to get hard. Instead of getting turned on, your instincts are telling you it’s time to run or fight for your life.
Even if you don’t enter full ‘fight or flight’ mode, constant worry is unlikely to lead to great sex.
Plus, feeling anxious all the time can lower your libido and put you in a bad mood (no surprise there). This means that anxiety and low mood can sometimes go hand-in-hand.
Treatment options for anxiety-induced ED
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Mindfulness, grounding, and relaxation podcasts and exercises
- Meditations
- Breathing exercises
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment
- In-person psychological therapy (including CBT and psychosexual therapy)
- Healthy eating
- Exercise
- Rest
- Talking to your doctor about medication options if needed
Sexual performance anxiety (SPA)
How does SPA impact your erections?
This specific kind of anxiety involves all the same ingredients as general anxiety (worry, fear, and adrenaline) but it only pops up in a sexual context.
This could mean you spend all day before a date worrying about how you’ll perform in the bedroom. Or it could mean that during foreplay, your body enters ‘fight or flight’ mode.
It creates a big disconnect between your mind and your body – where your mind is racing so much you can’t actually enjoy being turned on.
SPA can be (understandably) triggered by a one-off negative experience in bed. And if you’re in a state of heightened fear that ED will strike again, you can quickly lose confidence.
These worries can lead to a negative spiral where every encounter with SPA (and ED) makes another more likely.
Treatment options for sexual performance anxiety
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Mindfulness, grounding, and relaxation podcasts and exercises
- A dedicated psychosexual therapy course on ‘sexual performance anxiety’
- Mindful masturbation techniques
- Breathing exercises
- Meditations that include ‘getting out of your head during sex’, ‘tackling performance anxiety’, and ‘overcoming pre-sex nerves’
- Education about SPA and ED, and exploring coping strategies in general
- Expert-led therapy videos and podcasts on SPA
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment:
- In-person psychosexual therapy (including CBT, sensate focus, and couples counseling)
- Communication with your partner
Related post: Sexual Performance Anxiety 101
Stress
How does stress impact your erections?
Stress can trigger lots of physical and mental symptoms, which can hold up your sexual functions.
Feeling stressed also makes it harder for your body's systems to communicate with each other – making it more difficult for your brain to tell your penis to get hard.
When stress hangs around and becomes chronic, you might need more support to get your erections back on track.
Treatment options for stress-induced erectile dysfunction
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Mindfulness, grounding, and relaxation podcasts and exercises
- Meditations
- Breathing exercises
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment
- In-person therapy (for chronic stress)
- Rest
- Exercise
- Healthy eating
Depression
How does depression impact your erections?
We all know living with depression is difficult. But not everyone knows that it can impact your erections. This is because it can unbalance your brain chemistry and lower your libido. All this makes it harder to get hard.
Some medications for depression (like SSRIs) can also make it a struggle to get an erection. But some guys find that SSRIs help with psychological ED – so don’t come off medication without speaking to a healthcare professional.
Treatment options for ED caused by depression
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Mindfulness, grounding, and relaxation podcasts and exercises
- Meditations
- Breathing exercises
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment:
- In-person therapy (for depression)
- Exercise
- Healthy eating
- Rest
- Talking to your doctor about medication options if needed
An unhealthy relationship with porn
How can porn impact your erections?
Porn isn’t necessarily bad, but if you feel like your porn watching habits are impacting your erections, you might want to rebalance your relationship with porn.
Porn may contribute to unrealistic expectations about sex, body image, and penis size. All this can make you feel bad about yourself and ultimately set off sexual performance anxiety.
Plus, porn often showcases a narrow view of what sex is, how to get aroused, and how long sex should last. This could make it harder to get and stay hard in different sexual situations.
Treatment options for porn-induced ED (PIED)
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Mindful masturbation techniques
- Dedicated, expert-led therapy videos and podcasts on rebalancing porn use
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment:
- In-person psychosexual therapy
An unhealthy relationship with masturbation
How can masturbation impact your erections?
If you’re stuck in a rut with your masturbation routine, you might start to think you can only get hard or finish if you follow your standard solo sex procedure. This can make it harder to get hard for partnered sex.
Or, you might have trouble getting hard with someone else if you’ve got into the habit of always using the prone position or a 'death grip’.
These techniques are very hard to recreate with a partner, so using them consistently might make you think you’re unable to get and stay hard during partnered sex.
Treatment options for rebalancing your masturbation habits
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Mindful masturbation techniques
- Dedicated psychosexual therapy courses, exercises, and meditations to train you in masturbation techniques to help you use masturbation as a tool to get better erections (rather than hinder your erections)
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment:
- In-person psychosexual therapy
Related post: Masturbation & ED
Relationship problems, including loss of interest, arguing, infidelity, or a breakup
How can relationship problems impact your erections?
This is a classic case of the chicken and the egg. ED can trigger problems in your relationship, and problems in your relationship can trigger ED.
There are plenty of still things you can do on your own and with your partners to start fixing the root of the problem, which will eventually lead you to better erections.
Treatment options for ED caused by relationship problems
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Individual and couples meditations
- Dedicated content, including ‘intimacy and communication’ and ‘exploring sexual intelligence’ – to help you have a more fulfilling sex life
- Dedicated content, including ‘conquering performance anxiety’ to help you get out of your head during sex
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment:
- In-person psychosexual therapy
- In-person couples counseling
- Communication with your partner
- Sexual experimentation
Body issues and insecurities
How do body issues and insecurities impact your erections?
It’s hard to get sexy when you don’t feel sexy.
Feeling insecure about your body can spark negative thought cycles.
This could mean that you don’t feel confident enough to get naked and vulnerable with another person – or it could increase your adrenaline levels and trigger sexual performance anxiety.
All of this makes it much more difficult to get and maintain a boner.
Treatment options for ED caused by body issues and insecurities
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Dedicated content, including a ‘reframe’ course to help you improve your confidence in the bedroom
- Dedicated content to reduce sexual performance anxiety
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment:
- In-person psychosexual therapy (including CBT)
- Communication with your partner
Insecurities about sex skills, limited sexual experience, or a lack of sex education
How does insecurity, limited experience, or lack of sex education impact your erections?
When you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing in the bedroom, sex can become less sexy and more stressful.
Feeling inexperienced or unskilled can lead to feeling like you’re not good enough altogether.
All of these thoughts can trigger sexual performance anxiety, or it can cause you to start avoiding sex in general.
Treatment options for ED caused by sexual insecurity, limited experience, or lack of education
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Education about erectile dysfunction, being intimate, and exploring coping strategies in general
- Dedicated meditations for boosting your confidence in the bedroom, including ‘overcoming pre-sex nerves’
- Dedicated courses including ‘exploring sexual intelligence’
- Dedicated content to reduce sexual performance anxiety
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment:
- In-person psychosexual therapy (including CBT)
- Communication with your partner
Loss of sex drive (libido)
How can loss of sex drive impact your erections?
When your sex drive takes a dip, your brain stops delivering the chemical messages you need to get arousal and form an erection.
It’s totally normal for your sex drive to increase or decrease at different times in your life, but if you want your libido back, there are steps you can take to make it happen.
Treatment options for erectile dysfunction caused by loss of sex drive
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Mindfulness, grounding, and relaxation podcasts and exercises
- Dedicated meditation series, including ‘boosting your arousal’
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment:
- In-person psychosexual therapy
- Rest
- Exercise
- Healthy eating
- Communication with your partner
- Sexual experimentation
Major life events
How can major life events impact your erections?
Major life events – like having a baby, buying a house, or changing career – can take your attention and energy away from sex.
It’s normal for your sex drive to dip when you have a lot going on, but you might want to look into treatment if the problem persists and it’s getting in the way of your erections.
Treatment options for ED caused by major life events
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Mindfulness, grounding, and relaxation podcasts and exercises
- Meditations
- Breathing exercises
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment:
- Rest
- Exercise
- Healthy eating
- In-person psychological therapy (for prolonged or chronic stress)
- Communication with your partner
Tiredness or fatigue
How can tiredness or fatigue impact your erections?
If your body isn’t feeling full of energy, it’ll be much harder to maintain a fulfilling sex life and strong erections. Erectile dysfunction caused by lack of rest could be a real sign that you need to give yourself a break.
Treatment options for ED caused by tiredness or fatigue
Mojo offers:
- Online psychosexual therapy videos and courses
- Mindfulness, grounding, and relaxation podcasts and exercises
- Community support
- Anonymous men's group sessions online
Other treatment:
- Rest (that’s an obvious one)
- Exercise
- Healthy eating
Psychological treatment for erectile dysfunction: the sum-up
You might have noticed that therapy pops up as a recommended treatment for almost all psychological ED problems. In-person therapy is an amazing option for many guys, but we understand that the price tag and the waitlist aren’t for everyone.
At Mojo, we use expert-led psychosexual therapy techniques to treat erection issues in an accessible, anonymous way. We’ve also got all the community support, expert advice, and practical strategies you could need to get your erections back on track. Sound appealing? Check out this trial, so you can give it a go – no strings attached.
And, trust us, this stuff really works.
Mojo aims to provide useful wellbeing resources to its users; however, you should not solely rely on opinions or advice available on the Website or given by the Community. Always seek advice from a qualified medical doctor or other healthcare professional before acting.
